We want to up the ante for the rest of 2016. The sources you all are adding are fantastic. Now that WikiTree has done some work on clarifying what we ask for in citing a source, your sources need to be cited as closely to the recommended Sources help page as possible, or they cannot count towards your tally. That means, if there is a link to the work mentioned, you must include it. If it is a page from a book, the page needs to be included so others can easily see where you found the reference. The more specific, the more useful the source.

We can also do a bit more while adding sources, like clean up the gedcom leftovers or help the formatting from older profiles. Sources are important, but if you can't find them among all the other stuff, they aren't helping as much as they could.

Onto March's challenge:

You only need to answer the post once, and just edit your post to add your new profiles, continuing in a comment on your answer as necessary. Please number your contributions (a number every ten or hundred works just fine). It helps us tally at the end of the month much faster. See last month's challenge for examples.

* All profiles improved mustcome from the Unsourced categories <http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Unsourced_Profilesor be already presenton WikiTree and unsourced-you can't create new profiles and add sources just to up your tally. The hope and goal is to improve the numbers already on WikiTree that need sources. Adding sources will help merges happen, too, which will improve our tree. Showing folks what sources you're using helps newer researchers see just what's available out there for us to access. Another great source of unsourced profiles is to check out orphaned profiles.

* The tally is of profiles improved, not sources added. That said, if you can add a number of sources to a profile, all the better. Maybe we'll switch things up and see how many sources added y'all can do one month.

* If you attempt to add sources to a profile and just cannot find any, please add a note under a section like === Research Notes === giving where you tried to find records and you can sign it with the four tildes (~~~~) so the date is applied as well. Something like "Looked for John in the US Census records for 1900-1940 and couldn't find him on FamilySearch or Ancestry" would be fine. Or, "Searched google for an obituary and didn't find one." That way the next researcher knows where to start.

* If the only source on a profile is "Ancestry tree" or "Geni.com" it can count as unsourced, and you can add better sources to it to count in your tally.

* If you find a match and can merge a profile into an already source profile, that counts, too. You still found a source, plus you eliminated a duplicate. Awesome!

We are now actively in our March Challenge, which will run through March 31st. Ask any questions here in the thread, otherwise, GO!

I was working away -- busy busy, then "restarting windows, installing windows 10". I had 4 programs running plus my browser. Never mind, windows operating system took over. I was never going to install windows 10 as I have a crappy computer but my wishes did not count. Three hours later (and its late) I am back on but now there will be a learning curve. Woe is me ... :-(

Anne B, My husband has 2 MACs and he has been trying for years to get me to switch. I am thinking it is about time. I was a computer analyst and I am so dependent upon the applications that I use. But even those applications are slowly being fazed out or one can only use them by a month-to-month paid subscription. Either go with the flow or find a new river. :)

I've used both for long periods of time, so have no problem switching between one and the other. About the only noticeable difference is what they call things. And the close X buttons are in different corners. My husband had a PC, but then it got something that ate all the documents on it. So I bit the bullet and spent the money for a Mac for him too.

Not until the end, Antonia. There is no automated count - it's all manually done by Abby. And she has her work cut out for her this month! I've been doing an unofficial count every few days, and 11 participants had 100 or more improved profiles as of yesterday.

46 Answers

+15 votes

Best answer

I have decided to join the challenge. As I am reviewing some of the improved profiles I see some sources that go to a generic search page and others that go to page not found. I will be using familysearch as my sources, as they provide the source information that I only have to copy/paste. I like easy.

Thanks, Star. I figured there was probably some project he should be part of but I couldn't figure out what. Is there not a way to just show he was in the Army without dates? I only know his draft registration date at this point and that's not really a join date.

Thanks for the heads up, Igor. Maybe I'm missing something but it looks like I have to register and give a credit card to see the search results at Fold3. I'm not prepared for another subscription at this point. If there's a way to see the info without doing that, would you point me to it.

Yes, 2 ways on a limited budget (I don't have a subscription either).
(1) Your local library probably has in-house subscriptions to Ancestry and Fold3. (They probably allow remote access, but premium is at library use only.)
(2) Your "local" FHC has a "magic" set of PCs. The "FHL Portal icon" has access to many premium sites including Fold3. The downside is "local" may be a bit of a drive depending on where you live.
(local for me used to be 17 miles in Austin, we now have a church & FHC in Round Rock about 2 miles from home.)

I'll add for other readers, you don't have to be LDS to use FHC resources.

I had a little help getting started this month. Three merges that I had been waiting on to either time out or be approved by the other manager finally happened. Three bios that I had already completed merged in to unsourced profiles. The rest of the month will be slower going.

Thanks, Star. It kind of feels like cheating since about a quarter of these are my own gedcom imports that I'm cleaning up. Everything had some kind of source but .... yea, not good ones that anyone else could find. Most of the sources were to correspondence I had ten years ago with other researchers. So I'm following up on the clues those researchers provided, finding the original sources and counting them, darn it!

I'm new here but am not trying to start my own. I found these and just trying to correct. Maybe I'm not ready to do this. Sorry for any inconvenience as someone who didn't mean anything about suggesting and doing what I did. Sorry

Oh yes, I know it can be quite confusing at first. This "Sourcerer's" challenge is about finding sources for profiles that don't have any. If you want to join in, I believe all you need to do is create a post by using the "answer" link under the main post at the top. I think there is a different project for creating and completing merges, too... can't remember what it is now... Take care and good luck! :)

Since I've seen some comments by people who get annoyed by other people going in and editing profiles that they're working on, I've decided to focus on profiles which either haven't been edited for at least a year, or are unowned, just so I don't step on anybody's toes.

Thanks for your note, Greg. I'm glad you weren't discouraged by the negative comments you received. I never received any comments like that before, but I received three during the February Challenge. Like you, I think I'll focus on the Orphaned profiles, since many of them have no good sources.

So many people are going great guns this month that I suspect that my ranking is going to go down, rather than up. But that's all to the good. More sources means that the database as a whole is that much more accurate. (And, among other things, I'm a database geek, so seeing data cleaned up warms the cockles of my heart.)

Well, not sure if I'm on a roll or a rampage here, been going through possible matches to my profiles, finding a couple who are a closed loop father-son-father-son... duh, left some notes for the manager since they are green, been talking to that manager for a while now so I know he will act. Anyways, here goes again, usual source unless otherwise stated is Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1997, with links to the actual acts, not accessible to everybody since it's subscription based though. But there are enough people who do have subscriptions to be able to double-check if needed.

12 http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Chartier-300 had to do everything with this woman and her husband, they were attached as parents of a 1600s profile, whose parents are in fact unknown. She was born in 1700s. Find the error! Geni doesn't look any better than Ancestry for this sort of nonsense!

John Hooper: added sources for baptism, marriages, death & burial, 1841, 1851 census, remove link to incorrect wife, and added a "new" wife (confusingly they were both called Ann Warrick, also found a big confusion between the family of this John Hooper and John Hooper, which I've attempted to unravel by reference to the censuses - see following entries)

Have stumbled into a wildly inaccurate, orphaned gedcom upload from 2011 with Swedish forebears of an emigrant (sourced from an Ancestry tree) and started re-researching. Adding sources as given from the page at Arkiv Digital. Example: Eda C:6 (1764-1797) Bild 94 / sid 181 (AID: v6051.b94.s181, NAD: SE/VA/13091)

Andersen-156 - birth and census

Persdotter-256 - birth and marriage (also found the correct parents for her)

Andersdotter-Barnsmorka-1 - marriage, census and death (also removed a bigamist husband and their children; still more work to be done as Barnsmorka is not a surname, but a misinterpretation of her profession as barnmorska = midwife)

This gedcom disintegrates into family-size chunks as I work with it. Sometimes families from widely different parts of the country (and different social class) cobbled together. At other times family chunks cobbled together by attributing parents younger than their grandchildren. Googling for clues as to when and where to look for the primary sources I come across sites where these spurious loops are repeated, citing wikitree as a source. Better keep cleaning up ;-)

Taking a break from the messy gedcom, instead working through a family entered as "firsthand knowledge" in 2012 (although persons are from the 1700s and 1800s). The profiles are now orphaned. They also happen to be what connects me to Kevin Bacon ;-) - so I recognized the older parts as legit. However sourcering was trickier than I thought.

Andersdotter-1173 - birth, death

Nilsson-1189 - birth, death

Tomasson-9 - birth, death, census

Mattson-91 - birth, death

Persdotter-601 - birth, death

Mattiasson-1 - census (in the plural)

Mattsdotter-92 - census, death

Andersson-1987 - birth, death

Strid-1 -birth, death

Strid-3 - birth

Streed-2 - birth

Came across a family entered as firsthand knowledge in 2012:
Malmgren-7 - birth + untangled a family snarl (it seems to be possible to enter somebody as her own mother)

Well, I did consider, and found it much too cumbersome. I guess the Arkiv Digital template is what the category page calls a source shortcut template. As such it isn't officially recommended; well neither is it officially recommended against, but should they be required in the future it seems like a splendid way for scaring away newbies.

But then you need to indicate on the profile that you are using SVAR. I have modified Susana Malmgren's profile to illustrate how I use ArkivDigital with its template. I did it twice, the second time with the least I would include using the template. ArkivDigital allows all pertinant data to be stored and I print this on the profile, cut and paste and then delete it. Norm

It definitely helps to add a direct link to the source referenced if you grabbed it off the internet. I often add a link to Ancestry if that's what I'm working from, then come back later and search it out on Familysearch.org when I have more time to change it to something free for those who don't subscribe. At the very least, the link to something behind a paywall can still be accessed by some and a call out on G2G usually brings up someone willing to go look at it if help is needed. Links are always great in sources, though. It makes it a lot easier to collaborate when we can see what you see in adding them. Thanks for all the sourcing from everyone this month so far!

Seen the challenge at the end of last month. Going to work on my unsourced profiles first. Most are from when I first joined Wikitree, but I am just now to a point that I can concentrate on Wikitree. (Thanks for the help in doing this!)

Beautiful work on these profiles, Laurie. I think you handled the email sourcing perfectly, since the person who added it as a source didn't provide adequate information - Caroline with no last name, no email address, and no date.

I bought myself a used copy of the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, which, as far as I know, is not available on line. Since I have been concentrating on the families of New Hampshire, this book is of great help. I think it is regarded as pretty accurate, so I have cited it as a source many times. (Anderson himself cites it, so it must be reliable.) If the print wasn't so small, I could probably have done more.

Terrific work, Vincent!. I like the way you add * ''Add [[sources]] here.'' at the end of your list of sources. This helps people to know where to place the next source - I'll start doing that, too. I always learn something from looking at the work of others - thanks!

Hello everyone! I have decided to join the challenge. I keep finding many profiles from gedcoms that have no sources. Some or most of them have been found while searching to connect my tree before creating a duplicate. Time seek, source, and sort them out, starting with the Tackett Family profiles.

1. William Tackett-133 added marriage source FHL Kentucky Marriages.

2. Hannah Cauldwell-1310 added marriage resource

3. Susannah Unknown-159491 added death record of a Tackett that lists Susannah Hampton as mother and William Tackett as father

4. William Tackett-366 added marriage source

5. Charlotte Alsabrook-18 added marriage source

6. Lewis Tackett-21 added registered name and lineage links, category, and wrote biography, still needs more work

Thanks for the encouragement Star. This really is a challenge! Can I remove the gedcom upload info? Seems all the Tackett profiles are gedcom imports and haven't been touched since, or information added but not sourced. Once I figure out which William belongs to who, I am almost certain there will be merges, but judging from the dates, and the process of proposing the merge etc., this could take a while.

The profile of Lewis Tackett that I ended up spending a lot of time on is a Huguenot founder in Virginia. I felt I should complete it. If it needs to merged how do you make sure information is not lost? I believe I read somewhere on the forum that it happens sometimes. Still new at some of these things but enjoying the process. Thanks again.

You will find a lot of old profiles that were imported and never cleaned up. When you see a biography that begins with "This biography is a rough draft." - BEWARE! It really is rough sometimes!

It's a good idea to clean up the gedcom junk, because it will make it easier for you, and future researchers, to read the profile. You may want to read the GEDCOM-created biographies page for some helpful tips on cleaning up these old profiles.

You are absolutely right about the Merge process, Nancy. It takes a while to do it right. Better to leave profiles unmerged until you have the sources and data that make you confident in requesting a merge. Fixing an accidental merge can be a real headache! You can read more on the Merging help page.

Thanks Star, I reviewed policy and style today, and happened to run across the GEDCOM auto created biographies section. I'm glad I did. I think you are right about leaving some things on the biography, and proceeding with caution on the merges. I doubt I will get a response from most of the profile manager(s) as it appears they may be inactive. That's okay, I can wait while doing more research. Thanks again for your response.

Hi Nancy. slow and steady really works on Wikitree. Like you, I find a lot of my work by searching here for my own ancestors. Thank you so much for taking the time, to sort out the profiles that are already here.

Working on an 'Unconnected' tree from Cornwall, England. Try as I might, I just can't seem to get them connected! but at least they make great entries for the Sourcerer's Challenge, with hardly any sources and plenty of GEDCOM cruft:

Beautiful work, Ros! I'm hoping that all the work you and John are doing on Cornwall profiles will eventually help me with my distant family line in that area. I know that sounds selfish, but I hope it lets you know that the work you do during this challenge really does help other researchers.

Thanks, Star! I took a look at some of your Cornish folk, and immediately found a research query: Peter Eva and Mary Sincock were married in 1782, well after several of the children were born. This made me think - was there a first wife who died, and Peter remarried Mary? or perhaps Mary or some of the children should not be in this family at all. What do you think? I have also PMd the manager.

Thanks for looking into the Eva's, Ros. I can't really tell what's going on with the Peter Eva family from the profile. Could also be Mary's children from a previous marriage, and they took on the name Eva? Or maybe Peter was previously married to Mary's sister who died young, so he married her because she already knew the kids? Definitely more research needed here.